{
 "id": "robert-frost/the-axe-helve",
 "title": "The Axe-Helve",
 "poet": "Robert Frost",
 "poet_slug": "robert-frost",
 "language": "en",
 "book": "New Hampshire",
 "book_slug": "new-hampshire",
 "book_kind": "volume",
 "sequence": 6,
 "container": "Notes",
 "epigraph": null,
 "first_published": {
  "year": 1923,
  "venue": "New Hampshire (1923)",
  "note": "First located printing is this volume; an earlier periodical printing has not been established.",
  "uncertain": false,
  "sources": [
   "https://archive.org/details/newhampshirepoem00fros_0",
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58611",
   "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7008086"
  ]
 },
 "source": {
  "kind": "standard-ebooks",
  "repo": "standardebooks/robert-frost_new-hampshire",
  "file": "new-hampshire.xhtml",
  "upstream": [
   "https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58611",
   "https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000433611"
  ],
  "rights": "public domain (SE dedication; underlying text pre-1931)"
 },
 "verification": {
  "level": "structural-only",
  "last_checked": "2026-08-12"
 },
 "stats": {
  "n_lines": 103,
  "n_stanzas": 11,
  "n_parts": 0,
  "longest_line_chars": 54,
  "max_indent": 5
 },
 "site_ready": true,
 "parts": [],
 "stanzas": [
  [
   {
    "text": "I’ve known ere now an interfering branch",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of alder catch my lifted axe behind me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But that was in the woods, to hold my hand",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From striking at another alder’s roots,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And that was, as I say, an alder branch.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "This was a man, Baptiste, who stole one day",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Behind me on the snow in my own yard",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where I was working at the chopping-block,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And cutting nothing not cut down already.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He caught my axe expertly on the rise,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "When all my strength put forth was in his favor,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Held it a moment where it was, to calm me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then took it from me⁠—and I let him take it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I didn’t know him well enough to know",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What it was all about. There might be something",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He had in mind to say to a bad neighbor",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He might prefer to say to him disarmed.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "But all he had to tell me in French-English",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was what he thought of⁠—not me, but my axe;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Me only as I took my axe to heart.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "It was the bad axe-helve some one had sold me⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Made on machine,” he said, ploughing the grain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With a thick thumbnail to show how it ran",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Across the handle’s long drawn serpentine,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Like the two strokes across a dollar sign.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“You give her one good crack, she’s snap raght off.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Den where’s your hax-ead flying t’rough de hair?”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Admitted; and yet, what was that to him?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Come on my house and I put you one in",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What’s las’ awhile⁠—good hick’ry what’s grow crooked,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "De second growt’ I cut myself⁠—tough, tough!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Something to sell? That wasn’t how it sounded.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "“Den when you say you come? It’s cost you nothing.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To-naght?”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "As well to-night as any night.",
    "indent": 5
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Beyond an over-warmth of kitchen stove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "My welcome differed from no other welcome.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Baptiste knew best why I was where I was.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "So long as he would leave enough unsaid,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "I shouldn’t mind his being overjoyed",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "(If overjoyed he was) at having got me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Where I must judge if what he knew about an axe",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That not everybody else knew was to count",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For nothing in the measure of a neighbor.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Hard if, though cast away for life with Yankees,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A Frenchman couldn’t get his human rating!",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Mrs. Baptiste came in and rocked a chair",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That had as many motions as the world:",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "One back and forward, in and out of shadow,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "That got her nowhere; one more gradual,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Sideways, that would have run her on the stove",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In time, had she not realized her danger",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And caught herself up bodily, chair and all,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And set herself back where she started from.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“She ain’t spick too much Henglish⁠—dat’s too bad.”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "I was afraid, in brightening first on me,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Then on Baptiste, as if she understood",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "What passed between us, she was only feigning.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Baptiste was anxious for her; but no more",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Than for himself, so placed he couldn’t hope",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To keep his bargain of the morning with me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "In time to keep me from suspecting him",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of really never having meant to keep it.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Needlessly soon he had his axe-helves out,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "A quiverful to choose from, since he wished me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To have the best he had, or had to spare⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Not for me to ask which, when what he took",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Had beauties he had to point me out at length",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To insure their not being wasted on me.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He liked to have it slender as a whipstock,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Free from the least knot, equal to the strain",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of bending like a sword across the knee.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He showed me that the lines of a good helve",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Were native to the grain before the knife",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Expressed them, and its curves were no false curves",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Put on it from without. And there its strength lay",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For the hard work. He chafed its long white body",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "From end to end with his rough hand shut round it.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He tried it at the eye-hole in the axe-head.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“Hahn, hahn,” he mused, “don’t need much taking down.”",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Baptiste knew how to make a short job long",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "For love of it, and yet not waste time either.",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "Do you know, what we talked about was knowledge?",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Baptiste on his defence about the children",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "He kept from school, or did his best to keep⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Whatever school and children and our doubts",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Of laid-on education had to do",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "With the curves of his axe-helves and his having",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Used these unscrupulously to bring me",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To see for once the inside of his house.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Was I desired in friendship, partly as some one",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "To leave it to, whether the right to hold",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Such doubts of education should depend",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Upon the education of those who held them?",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ],
  [
   {
    "text": "But now he brushed the shavings from his knee",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And stood the axe there on its horse’s hoof,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Erect, but not without its waves, as when",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "The snake stood up for evil in the Garden⁠—",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Top-heavy with a heaviness his short,",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Thick hand made light of, steel-blue chin drawn down",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "And in a little⁠—a French touch in that.",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "Baptiste drew back and squinted at it, pleased;",
    "indent": 0
   },
   {
    "text": "“See how she’s cock her head!”",
    "indent": 0
   }
  ]
 ]
}